


Iruka's Long Day

by QuoteMyFoot



Series: Naruto AU Week [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Elementary School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Friendship, Gen, Primary school teacher Iruka, actually a primary school because i only know british schools
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29364729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuoteMyFoot/pseuds/QuoteMyFoot
Summary: Iruka is having a difficult time with his job as a primary school teacher, which isn't helped by Naruto and Sasuke having a friendship crisis at school. Still, teaching is a calling, not a career, and his kids prove it every day.Day 4: School
Relationships: Uchiha Sasuke & Umino Iruka, Uchiha Sasuke & Umino Iruka & Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto, Umino Iruka & Uzumaki Naruto
Series: Naruto AU Week [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2151003
Comments: 8
Kudos: 25
Collections: Naruto AU Week 2021





	Iruka's Long Day

When Iruka’s alarm went off at 6AM, he groaned and buried his face in his pillow. He would quite cheerfully have strangled Mizuki right then. God, it wasn’t Mizuki’s fault he’d gotten sick, but with the Ofsted inspections coming up, all of his work had had to be taken up by Iruka, and he’d been up late finishing lesson plans… Maybe he should call in sick? Just the one day… get all the paperwork done, a good night’s rest…

Wait—it was Thursday. His turn at Breakfast Club. Naruto and Sai would be there, with their expectant little faces. He couldn’t let them down.

Iruka took a very, _very_ deep breath and then threw himself out of bed. Time to get ready for the day.

*

He arrived at school by 7AM and set about making his usual preparations for the day – printing and photocopying worksheets whilst chugging more coffee than was strictly healthy for a single human being and checking his emails on his phone. He wouldn’t be able to attend the teachers’ meeting today because of Breakfast Club, so he had to check if there was anything happening today in school he needed to know about.

All of Iruka’s photocopying – and Mizuki’s – took nearly forty minutes and most of his patience when the photocopier jammed halfway through the second set of English handouts. Luckily a little percussive maintenance and creative swearing seemed to fix the problem.

After spending his required ten minutes bitching with a colleague about the upcoming Ofsted inspection, Iruka arrived at the hall just in time to help finish setting things up for the kids.

Naruto normally came bouncing in, pulling Sai along and saying twenty words for every one of Sai’s—something that still made Iruka’s heart swell with pride, as he remembered all too well when Sai first started at their school, answered only direct questions and was otherwise silent.

Today, Naruto stomped in and Sai followed afterwards, looking mildly confused. Iruka sensed trouble and his heart sank. _Today isn’t going to be a good day, is it?_

“Naruto,” he asked, “is something wrong?”

“Sai called me a _girl!”_ Naruto replied, with all the outrage you’d expect of a seven year old boy lacking good female influences. (Not for lack of trying on little Sakura’s part, it has to be said.)

“But he has to be,” Sai explained calmly, “because he’s dickless. That means a girl, doesn’t it?”

Iruka’s brain attempted to force out several different sentences at once: about what we say to our friends, transgender people, language that shouldn’t be used at school, and where on _earth_ Sai heard such a thing—but all that came out was spluttering.

“I told you not to say that!” Naruto shouted, his lower lip trembling.

“But it’s true,” Said said, still confused. “Ami said—”

“I don’t care, I hate you!” Naruto retorted, before punching Sai’s shoulder and bursting into tears.

Sai responded by punching Naruto back and then bursting into tears himself. He probably would’ve ran away if Iruka hadn’t grabbed his sleeve in time.

It was way too early in the morning to be dealing with child hysterics. Iruka’s eye twitched as he pulled both boys aside and tried to explain, as calmly as possible, why Sai had not said a nice thing, why it was _not_ an appropriate word for school, and why some people who were thought to be boys might actually turn out to be girls and that was fine (but Naruto was not) in a subtle enough way that playground chatter about it—because as soon as Sai learned _anything_ new he would tell _everyone—_ would not turn into a parental complaint. Because Iruka _was_ willing to fight parents over this but not right before the fucking Ofsted inspection.

He did all of this whilst shovelling toast into the boys’ mouths so they would actually eat something.

“So even if he is dickless, Naruto is still a boy because he says he’s a boy?” Sai concluded. “And I shouldn’t say dickless in school. Or call people dickless because it’s rude.”

Iruka sighed. “Yes, Sai.”

“I was only doing it then to make sure I understand,” Sai said, a little defensively. He took another delicate bite of his toast, a stark comparison to Naruto shoving a whole slice into his mouth in one go. “Ami must think some really weird things, Iruka.”

“Well, _before_ you repeat anything Ami tells you at school, why don’t you come and tell me first so we can discuss if it’s appropriate or not?” Iruka said, internally wincing. Ami lived in the same home as Naruto and Sai and Iruka had taught her three years ago. She was incredibly perceptive and he knew full well that she would be filling Sai’s head with all sorts of crass nonsense within a month, just so Iruka would have to explain it to him.

_The sacrifices I make for these kids._

Sai nodded, and Iruka smiled at him. “Great! Now why don’t we go down to the classroom before we’re late, huh?”

“Doesn’t the big hand being at five mean we’re already late?” Naruto asked.

_What._

Late _again?_ How did this always happen? The parents were going to be waiting and mad and snide muttering was absolutely not the start to his day Iruka wanted.

It took him another few minutes to father his things with Naruto and Sai ‘helping’ to carry everything downstairs to the classroom. At least they were back to normal, the small fight totally forgotten apart from Sai using his New Knowledge to tell Naruto six times, on the way down the stairs, that they would still be friends if Naruto was really a girl, he promised.

Iruka winced under the glares of all the parents as he approached. “Yes, I’m sorry I’m late, there was an incident at Breakfast Club…” “Yes, I understand work commitments, I do apologise…”

“Iruka, I wanted to talk to you about Sasuke,” Sasuke’s mother said. What was her name again? Moko?

The pale little boy holding her hand did not smile at Iruka as he entered the classroom, which was probably a bad omen.

Iruka tried to keep one eye on the flood of children putting away bags and water bottles whilst still trying to talk to Sasuke’s mother. “Yes, Mrs Uchiha—Naruto _no_ playing with water inside—did you have some concerns?”

“At home recently—”

“Choji, it’s not snacktime yet! Sorry, Mrs Uchiha, I am listening.”

“—Sasuke’s brother Itachi—”

“Kiba, I’ve asked you not to bring your puppy toy to school—yes I know it’s cute—”

The bell rang to mark the official start of the school day and Iruka hadn’t even taken the register.

He sighed. “Mr Uchiha, I’m so sorry, today is just—perhaps we can chat after school?”

She hovered, uncertain, whilst Iruka internally begged her to leave. “I suppose so,” she said finally. She leaned her head into the classroom and called to her son, “Make sure you have fun today, sweetie, okay?”

Sasuke nodded solemnly and gave a tiny wave.

What kind of parent would tell their child to ‘make sure’ to have fun? It was not Iruka’s place to judge, but really…

He put that thought aside whilst he got the children ready to start their English work for the day and subtly marked them all down as present on the register.

First lesson of the day was maths, the first two minutes of which were taken up with Shikamaru asking if—like he did every day—they were doing the five and ten times tables because they were the easiest. Iruka—like he did every day—replied ‘no’, Shika put his head down on the table and seemed to sleep through the whole lesson but still managed to turn in a completely correct worksheet at the end. That boy was a mystery.

“Now today we’re going to start writing down the stories we’ve been planning for the rest of this week. _Make sure_ you are using your very neatest handwriting, you are all big boys and girls in Year 2 now so we expect you to do your best… and Naruto, I know how excited you are about your wonderful story, but make sure you spend your time _writing_ instead of telling people about it, alright?”

Naruto smiled sheepishly. “Okay, Iruka!”

Iruka would have to remind him at least three times during the lesson, no doubt, but Naruto always meant it when he said he would _try,_ which was more than he could say for Shikamaru. Naruto excelled at all the creative exercises when he was encouraged to explore his ideas.

They wrote until it was time to play outside. Iruka was tempted to take a leaf out of Shikamaru’s book and spend his break napping, but he sighed and started some productive marking instead.

It was lucky he did, because not five minutes into playtime, one of the supervisors returned to the classroom with Naruto and Sasuke. Naruto, usually best friend with Sasuke, was glaring at him, whilst Sasuke had his head turned completely away from everyone. Was Naruto going to be a problem child today? Oh dear.

The supervisor explained that she’d caught the two boys fighting but that they wouldn’t say a word to her about it.

“That’s alright,” Iruka said tiredly. “Leave them with me; I’ll sort it out.”

Sasuke and Naruto didn’t move at all when the supervisor left, even when Iruka waited for one of them to try explaining themselves first. His stomach turned to lead. The two boys often squabbled over silly things and were friends again within five minutes. Could it have been something more serious this time?

When another ten seconds passed and neither of them said anything, Iruka forced a cheerful tone and said, “Why don’t we do our I-statements if you’re not sure what to say? Sasuke?”

“I feel angry when Naruto talks to me because he is not worth my time,” Sasuke spat.

Iruka pursed his lips to stop his instinctual response from leaving them. _Wow._ What the _hell_ had happened?

Worse of all, he could see Naruto’s eyes watering and he realised the boy was trying very hard to be angry so he wouldn’t start crying.

“Naruto?” he prompted.

“I…” Naruto sniffed. “I felt sad when Sasuke told me to go away and I wasn’t allowed to talk to him any more ‘cause… ‘cause…” His voice dropped to a whisper. “…I thought we were friends.”

Sasuke’s shoulders were so tense he was trembling, but he still didn’t look at Naruto or say anything.

Dammit, Iruka really should’ve made time to talk to his mother this morning. “And this is why you were fighting?”

“He wouldn’t leave me alone,” Sasuke said. His voice cracked.

Naruto sniffed again.

Iruka said, “You started the fight, Sasuke?”

His tiny shoulders hunched still further. “…Yes.”

Naruto was looking at his friend hopeful eyes, but Iruka suspected there was a deeper problem here than could be solved in a single afternoon. He sighed. “Naruto, what should you do if someone hits you? Instead of hitting back?”

“Tell an adult,” he replied sullenly. “But Sasuke said—”

“It sounds like Sasuke might have said some mean things, and I am going to _talk_ to Sasuke, but you should still tell an adult instead of fighting.”

Naruto nodded, head drooping. He no longer looked angry at all, just sad.

“Sasuke,” Iruka said gently, “do you have anything to say?”

“…I’m sorry for hitting,” the boy eventually said. “It’s not… proper.”

‘Proper’. That tell-tale word. Iruka sighed again. “Naruto, why don’t you go back outside to play? I need to talk to Sasuke.”

“But—”

The expression on Naruto’s face broke his heart. He was counting on Iruka to make it all better and fix the problem, but there were some things that were beyond Iruka’s power to fix.

“Go on.” Iruka gave him a nudge. “There’s not much playtime left.”

Naruto trailed away, dejected.

“Sasuke,” he said, keeping his voice quiet, “why did you say that about Naruto? You know it’s not nice.”

Sasuke did not respond.

“If I decided anyone in our class ‘wasn’t worth my time’, then I wouldn’t spend time helping them. It wouldn’t be fair, would it?”

He clenched his fists. “I don’t _have_ to be friends with Naruto.”

“You don’t,” Iruka allowed, even though he thought Naruto’s friendship had been very good for Sasuke. “But you’re still classmates. We all work together on lots of things and respect each other. I don’t have to be friends with the other teachers in the school, but if I said that Kurenai wasn’t worth my time, we could never help each other, could we?”

“I don’t need Naruto’s help!” Sasuke snapped.

“Don’t you?” Iruka asked. A rhetorical question, because he knew that Naruto had helped Sasuke come up with the story they’d been writing today, and he knew that Sasuke knew it too. “Naruto might need your help sometimes. And we do help each other in our school, because we’re a community. It’s important for us all to get along.”

Sasuke fidgeted. “I shouldn’t have said that. Naruto will hate me.”

He sounded very preoccupied with the idea of Naruto hating him, even if he _said_ he didn’t want to be friends any more. Not that Naruto would hate him. Despite everything, Naruto was an incredibly kind-hearted and loyal boy.

Sasuke quietly apologised to Naruto when the class came back in from playtime, but otherwise still refused to talk to him. When it was time to start their topic work on volcanoes, Iruka split the pair across opposite sides of the classroom as subtly as he could.

Of course, that didn’t fix the issue. Naruto was utterly miserable and barely did any of his work, even though he actually _liked_ volcanoes because, he’d told Iruka, ‘they explode really good’.

Sasuke, equally miserable but trying not to show it, toiled away beside Sakura and Ino, who were normally thrilled to have Sasuke sitting with them but were now frowning and whispering amongst themselves. At the end of the lesson, Sasuke handed in a complete and neatly labelled volcano that was an exact copy of the example Iruka had used, instead of trying to find and label the same parts on some different volcanoes like he’d asked. This was a habit Sasuke used to often fall into before becoming friends with Naruto. This time, Iruka didn’t comment on it.

By the time lunchtime came, Sakura and Ino seemed to have become suspicious themselves. They tried to ask both Sasuke and Naruto to play with them, but Sasuke, like he still often did in situations where there was no clear ‘polite’ answer, froze up.

Iruka decided to intervene before the freezing anxiety could turn into an outburst of more destructive emotion, keeping him behind as the rest filed out and headed for the playground. “Sasuke, you’ve always been happy to play with Naruto before. What’s different now?”

Sasuke shuffled his feet. “Dad and Itachi were arguing.”

Ah, yes, Sasuke’s big brother, a genuine wunderkind. Itachi had very briefly attended their school as well, in Reception, but had ended up taking classes with the higher years before Mr and Mrs Uchiha withdrew him from the school altogether, saying they’d found a private school which had agreed to take him on a scholarship and which could ‘better meet his needs’.

Iruka had only taught Itachi once. Unlike many bright children who were so far ahead of the rest of the class that schoolwork was boring for them, Itachi was not disruptive. Even when the work took him a literal minute to complete, he would simply put his pen down and sit silently until he was called on.

When Sasuke left Reception and moved into Iruka’s class in Year 1—the previous year—his file noted that he became anxious about choosing activities to do during free time, as well as during creative exercises when he was asked to just draw or think of something. It concluded by saying that the more structured learning time of the upper year classes would likely suit Sasuke better.

Sasuke, at first, hadn’t fared as well as expected. When called on in class, he often found it hard to do more than parrot back Iruka’s example, although, with coaching and one-on-one time, it was clear he understood the concepts being taught. Maths he excelled in, but Iruka had often caught him sitting and fretting during English and Art to the point of frustrating himself to tears.

Until Naruto decided to befriend him.

A lack of imagination, everyone agreed, had never been Naruto’s problem. The problem was reigning him in. But Naruto had been such a good friend for Sasuke, who absorbed his imaginitive games and creativity like a sponge. It wasn’t long before Sasuke began ‘correcting’ Naruto during their games—when Naruto wanted to play knights, Sasuke insisted that knights had to have swords, not guns, and made Naruto change the game. Eventually, Sasuke started to make up his own games, more structured, to match his frustration at Naruto’s changing whims turning everything into a game of Calvinball.

Sasuke still struggled with creative exercises and relied on Naruto’s outlandish suggestions as a way of forming his own ideas. But he no longer froze in class over the anxiety of not having the _exact_ right answer and could choose his own subjects to paint in art without taking too long over it… most of the time.

Iruka had told Sasuke’s mother and father at multiple parents’ evenings how pleased he was with Sasuke’s progress, and how important he felt Naruto’s friendship had been to the improvements they had seen, because he knew his parents were a little… suspicious… of some of the notions and, well, _ruder words_ that Sasuke had picked up from Naruto.

He’d hoped it had sunk in. Perhaps not.

“You’re not Itachi, though, are you?” Iruka asked Sasuke.

“No…” Sasuke hung his head. “But Dad said… we were both hanging out with bad influences… he said Naruto was ‘no good’ and… and…”

Sasuke started to sniffle and rub his eyes. Iruka went to get him a tissue. “Was it your dad who said Naruto ‘wasn’t worth your time’?”

The boy nodded and started properly crying.

Iruka patted his back. “I know your dad is very important to you, Sasuke, but it’s okay to not agree with him. _You_ think Naruto is good, don’t you?”

“Y-Yes,” Sasuke said, hiccuping through his words, “but now he—he won’t w-want to play wi-with me and he’ll hate m-me…”

“Why don’t we go say sorry to Naruto and see what he says, okay? I think if you say sorry, Naruto will be happy to be friends with you again.”

Sasuke started crying for a second time while apologising to Naruto, which made Naruto start crying too, and he called Sasuke’s dad bad and said Sasuke wasn’t allowed to do it again, and _Sasuke_ said that his dad wasn’t _bad_ he was just making _bad choices—_

And then ten minutes later the two of them were playing pirates with Sakura and Ino like nothing had ever been wrong.

Iruka sighed and checked his watch. If he hurried, he still had time to down another coffee and eat a sandwich.

*

After the drama, Iruka’s afternoon was much more peaceful. The kids were building their own volcanoes ready to make them erupt ‘lava’ in a few weeks time, such a universally appealing prospect that he had little to do to keep them on task except make sure Kiba didn’t get paint on his puppy toy, which had escaped from his drawer. Again.

At least, he _thought_ there wouldn’t be any problems, until he came to the corner, where Sai, Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura were whispering about something. This… could end badly. “What are you doing?”

Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura all jumped guiltily. Naruto hid something behind his back.

“We are all making progress on our volcanoes, Iruka!” Sai said with a grin.

This was somehow true, but Iruka was instinctively suspicious whenever Sai smiled that broadly. Still, as they did seem to be working on their volcanoes, he let it slide in respect for Naruto and Sasuke’s recently recovered friendship.

Towards the end of the day, more suspicious things occurred. During storytime, he kept having to stop to tell the class not to whisper, but they never seemed to listen. Storytime was only ten minutes but by the end of it his nerves were frayed and he was ready to strangle the beaming Sai, who was sitting closest to Iruka. They didn’t even finish the book!

Iruka was _more_ than ready to say goodbye to them all at the end of the day, until he saw Mrs Uchiha at the door and had to suppress a groan. He’d totally forgotten that they were supposed to have a talk…

It was a long wait for all the parents to leave as Kiba’s mother was running late, and then Mrs Uchiha didn’t let Iruka get a word in edgeways before she launched into a _long_ explanation about how Sasuke’s father and Itachi were arguing and-of-course-it-shouldn’t-but because of this Mr Uchiha had said some things to Sasuke that he shouldn’t have and whilst she had tried to explain that his father didn’t _mean_ it, could Iruka please—

Finally, Iruka lost his patience and just interrupted her. “I think we’ve already solved a problem relating to this today—” and explained what had happened.

“Oh dear.” She sighed and smoothed Sasuke’s hair. “You can choose your own friends, Sasuke, don’t listen to your father.”

 _Maybe you should tell Sasuke’s father not to say it instead,_ Iruka thought but did not say.

Sasuke nodded mutely, but as they were leaving, he suddenly froze. “I forgot something!” he said and ran back into the classroom.

Eventually, there was blessed silence. Iruka spent some time just wandering up the classroom so it would be ready for the next day. There was a staff meeting in five minutes for teachers who weren’t leading an after school club, but Iruka took a moment just collapse in his chair. He was definitely not getting that early night that he needed, and—

There was something on his desk.

A piece of card had been folded in half and then violently attacked with glitter—orange and pink, Naruto’s and Sakura’s favourite colours—and BEST TEACHER written at the top in Sasuke’s neatest handwriting. Someone, presumably Sai, had drawn a very passable Iruka on the front.

Inside, everyone in the class had signed their name—except Kiba who had drawn a pawprint and Shino who drew a spider.

‘ _We love you! Best teacher ever!!!!’_

Iruka was going to be late to the staff meeting. For some reason there was something in his eye.

He would still be tired when he got home tonight; he would still have too much marking to do, too much stress and not enough time; there would still be the Ofsted inspection, the approaching storm.

But this—this made it all worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> Rough schedule for the day based on this [helpful (and slightly terrifying) resource here](https://www.bcu.ac.uk/education-and-social-work/about-us/school-blog/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-trainee-primary-school-teacher), plus a few additions based on my own experiences in English schools and a few teachers I know. But I am still not a teacher so this should be taken with a pinch of salt. 
> 
> All kinds of comments loved and appreciated; concrit, I didn't like x, this reminded me of y, z was very cool--any thoughts are welcome and valuable.


End file.
